A common argument raised by atheists to disprove the possibility of the existence of God – and in this case I am primarily referring to the Christian God - can be summed by asking ‘who created God’ and results in what is known as the infinite regression problem. This problem is that for a God to exist it too must have been created by a God and in turn that God also had to be created by another God, and so on. The solution to this common argument proposed by believers is that God is effectively infinite and has simply always existed.
Okay so as it stands it looks like the believers have had the last word on this line of argument but there is an inherent flaw with their response of an infinite God and this is in simplest terms that if God is infinite then so could anything else including the universe itself. In other words by allowing God the privilege of being something that needs no creator to exist then there is no logical reason as to why the universe itself requires a creator, thus eliminating the very purpose of God’s existence in the first place. This of course does not mean that God does not exist but rather if God does exist there is no reason to believe that God created anything in the universe since by this line of argument anything can exist without a creator.
There, however, is another problem with the infinite God response and this problem in my opinion effectively invalidates this response completely. Basically if God has always existed then it means no matter how far back in time we go, God will have already existed for an infinite amount of time and we can always go back further. Yet life on Earth has only existed for a finite amount of time, which would mean that God remained inactive in terms of interest in Earth for an infinite amount of time beforehand. Or to put in another way if God has an infinite past then life on Earth has existed for an infinitesimal percentage of God’s lifespan; a portion that is in fact immeasurable. This for me means that if we are to accept the view of God as infinite, we also have to accept that life on Earth has existed for God for an infinitesimal proportion of God’s life.
So by suggesting that God is infinite we have not only eradicated the need for God to be a creator but also God’s interest in Earth must have played a very insignificant part of God’s existence, which does not exactly fit in with life on Earth being God’s goal – God has already spent an infinite amount of time not creating life on Earth or to put it another way has waited forever to create life on Earth. Clearly these are big holes in this proposal but all these statements also implicitly infer a paradox, which I will call the paradox of having an infinite past.
The paradox of having an infinite past is that to reach any finite point in your past you must have lived through an infinite amount of time to reach that point but how is it possible to have lived through an infinite amount of time? This problem is further complicated if this thing with an infinite past is a conscious creature that is aware of the passage of time much like ourselves, as this means that being must have an infinite memory of its past, which clearly cannot be stored in any system whether organic or otherwise.
It’s like saying that this creature has already existed forever but such a statement is illogical since forever can never have taken place, though this has to be the case with a being with an infinite past and this essentially is the paradox.
I suspect the following encompass how any believer will try to respond to this argument:
1. We never claim God is infinite; it’s just that God was not created. Of course by this statement you have effectively provided the same answer to God’s existence that the Big Bang theory is so often criticized for – that it simply popped into existence.
2. God does not experience time like we do. This may well be true but even if that is the case this does still not resolve the paradox – you are still trying to claim that a being has already existed forever – and also this begs the questions: how exactly do you think God does experience time and how could anyone possibly even know this? This response to me is more likely saying well for God to have always existed then God cannot experience time as we do.
3. Just because we cannot imagine something always having existed doesn’t mean it is not possible. This is very true but that’s not the point being made here. What I am saying is that there exists an inherent paradox with this concept, which can only be resolved by giving that being a beginning even if that beginning is approaching the number of atoms in the universe in years
To sum up the solution of God being infinite, which believers seem to use with explicit gall as if it is water tight, actually upon a logical inspection is very leaky indeed. If we were to accept God as infinite then we eliminate the need for God to be the creator, which in itself weakens the need for God to exist, but by suggesting any being has an infinite past opens up a whole can of worms – God must have waited forever to create life on Earth, how does any being have an infinite memory and more importantly creates the paradox of having already existed forever. In my opinion all this adds up to the solution of an infinite God as being invalid and God must have had a beginning, which means the problem of infinite regression still has no valid resolution and seriously weakens the probability of God’s existence.
3 years ago
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Time is relative, as is used in the argument of God not experiencing time as we do. In addition to that, time is a dimension. If you think about it, God most likely would not exist within any of the three visible dimensions. That is to say, if God exists it is most likely outside of the three dimensions that make up space. If God exists outside of space, then perhaps it would not be much of a stretch to say that God exists outside of time as well? Of course, if God exists outside of time and space, that would explain why he does not seem to "exist" at all. After all, we as humans typically only perceive the dimensions of time and space, so a God from outside of these dimensions entirely could in fact exist and we would have no way to ever *know* it unless he was able to make himself appear in some form at a certain point (A point, in this sense, being a specific location in space at a specific time). Given the fact that this may or may not be possible, and is most likely difficult to grasp, I have provided an alternate method.
Another possibility would be that God exists within time and space, but was created from outside of it. This would require another being of some sort that is not restricted by any of the four dimensions previously mentioned. Presuming this other being did in some sense "exist" in another dimension, it would have to be able to access all of the dimensions and create things in them. This might imply that rather than not existing in any of these dimensions it actually exists in them all as a four-dimensional figure. From here, it would be no more of a stretch for it to be able to create within those dimensions the same as we create (or really rather mold) things in space. While it may not have had much (or any) interest in the Earth or any other part of our universe, it could have at some point decided to create God. God, then, could exist for a finite amount of time that has not yet ended (or may have no end and only a beginning). This would provide a possible explanation for how God could have been created, while still allowing God to exist within the same dimensions as the Earth and humans. With that being said, there would no longer be an infinite past to God's existence which should resolve the paradox presented.
I think we try to think too inside the realms of physics when most certainly this is of supernatural spiritual matter and not of measurable physical natures. You are coming from a very scientific standpoint and unfortunately you cannot mix science with the spiritual and that's a fact even from an educated scientist. A God that exists without the confines of time is not fathomable and nor can we fathom how we fit on the space time continuum based on that statement.
We know an attribute of God is that according to the Christian Bible, He always was and always will be. We also find that the only thing labeled having an eternal-no-beginning is God himself; therefore Time/physics and even the limitations and confines of physics and math itself is a product of God.
Also, talking about dimensions and all this, in retrospect, places creation into a category exceeding biblical documentation.
It is interesting that this topic really ties into the Solitariness of God. Taking an excerpt from Arthur Pink.
"In the beginning, God" (Gen 1:1). There was a time, if "time" is could be called, when God, in the unity of His nature (though subsisting equally in three Divine Persons), dwelt all alone. "In the beginning, God." There was no heaven, where His glory is now particularly manifested. There was no earth to engage His attention. There were no angels to hymn His praises; no universe to be upheld by the word of His power. There was nothing, no one, but God; and that, not for a day, a year, or an age, but "from everlasting." During a past eternity, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied; in need of nothing. Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to Him in any way, they also had been called into existence from all eternity. The creating of them when He did, added nothing to God essentially. He changes not (Mal 3:6), therefore His essential glory can be neither augmented nor diminished.
God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create. That He chose to do so was purely a sovereign act on His part, caused by nothing outside Himself, determined by nothing but His own mere good pleasure; for He "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph 1:11). That He did create was simply for His manifestative glory. Do some of our readers imagine that we have gone beyond what Scripture warrants? Then our appeal shall be to the Law and the Testimony: "Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever: and blessed be Thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise" (Neh 9:5). God is no gainer even from our worship. He was in no need of that external glory of His grace which arises from His redeemed, for He is glorious enough in Himself without that. What was it moved Him to predestinate His elect to the praise of the glory of His grace? It was, as Ephesians 1:5 tells us, according to the good pleasure of His will."
I believe that God's foreknowledge can not only be contributed to his ultimate power but that he resides in all space / time in our created reality (both past, present and future) at the same time. If one believed that the product of everything in this reality is ultimately controlled and created by God that we exist in a manifestation of what we call "time" that really is a reality by God separated by the true existence which is our eternal afterlife. "to be absent from the body is to be present with the lord".
Lastly if one accepts God as always was, then His eternal existence cannot have a start and if God was created by another God then we circle back to this same paradox one uses for the big bang... According to statements here, nothing can simply exist; yet we entertain the idea that this universe came from nothing or of some super condensed matter that exploded. Again, where did this matter come from?, where did energy come from etc. God creating a God creates the same paradox that if you look logicly at it could continue into eternity... Who created that God that created God and so on into eternity of God creating God.
I rest where reality and existence is finite for us and infinite for God There can never be a logical or scientific explanation of the birth of existence as we know it because no matter how we look at it, eternal past must be and an infinite existence of God must be for this reality to even play a part in existence as we know it...
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